House's Halloween ghosts of the past

PHOTO COURTESY OF FOXForeman (Omar Epps), left, and Chase (Jesse Spencer) examine the remains of their patient's father and grandfather during an episode of the FOX drama "House."House is hearing voices, little whispers in the night.

Add Chase's bloody Dibala flashbacks and a patient who rises from the dead and you have the perfect Halloween episode of the FOX drama "House."

Case notes: The ep. (number 5 of season 6) opens with a pretty cool chase scene, cops targeting a suspect who performs some wicked acro-maneuvers to avoid capture. (Think of the beginning of "Quantum of Solace.") One officer, Donny, tries a running leap from one rooftop to another ... only to fall several stories and crash to the ground.

Turns out Donny (guest star Jon Seda) is a bit of a risk-taker, since he's convinced he's going to die at 40 -- which happens to be in just a few weeks. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather all suffered similarly, and he's lived his life like a man with a death sentence: No wife, no kids, no long-term commitments.

After treating Donny in the emergency room, Cameron refers him to House. Of course. And so we have our patient of the week.

As the new/old team attempts differential, Chase is distracted. Cameron wants to know why, but he can't exactly tell her that he's being "haunted" by the murderous dictator he helped kill. And House thinks he's going crazy too. Still living with best friend Wilson, he's finally given permission to move into the study/shrine-to-Amber, but starts hearing voices -- without Vicodin, he stresses.

No one is as freaked as Foreman, though, when his autopsy patient starts bleeding and choking -- on the table! (Long story short, House releases Donny with sugar pills because he can't find anything wrong. Donny collapses while doing laundry, is pronounced DOA and his body is brought back to PPTH.) The rising-from-the-dead trick was probably a surprise to anyone who didn't see the trailers all week, and anyone who wasn't paying attention to the time (can't kill the patient only halfway through the episode, even if broadcast was delayed 45 minutes by extended innings of the ALCS game between the Yankees and the Angels).

The story gets even more interesting -- and gory -- when Donny uses surgical forceps to yank out his own molar. Eww and oww. Apparently the tooth was so painful, he couldn't help himself -- and this is a man who has a broken leg, broken arm and various other injuries that occurred when he slammed into pavement.

What the heck is going on?

Diagnosis: Trick-or-treating, blood and gore aside, Halloween is a time when we must all come to terms with the ghosts of our past. What we did then makes us who we are now, but shouldn't necessarily dictate who we become tomorrow.

House hasn't learned that yet; he doesn't trust himself. Since he's hearing things, he's convinced he's relapsed and tells Cuddy he he's not ready to be a (re-licensed) doctor.

A doctor is what he is, and a brilliant one. When he treats himself like one of his patients (full investigation of symptoms and environment), he finds a heating grate and realizes that he's been overhearing Wilson having a pretend conversation with his dead girlfriend each night in bed.

Back at work, Cuddy asks him if he's OK; he asks her if they are OK. She offers a wry smile: "You press my buttons, I press yours.”

That's it! In a flash of insight, House knows what's wrong with Donny -- and his son. (Yup, the man who's sure he has no future has a walking, talking 10-year-old reason to live.) Both father and boy have a sort of genetic self-destruct button, a intercranial berry aneurism, that can be fixed with surgery.

House's slow acceptance of reality contrasts with Chase's descend into paranoia. The priest he visits won't give him absolution, so he tries to find forgiveness in the bottom of a bottle. He's desperate for someone to understand, but he still can't confess to his wife.

After pushing the youngster away earlier, Donny knows he needs to make the next move to re-connect. In an emotional juxtaposition, he steps into his son's hospital room ... just as Cameron pulls away from the troubled, tortured Chase.

It's getting good.

"House" airs Mondays at 8 p.m. Next week, the doc is pre-empted by a "So You Think You Can Dance" top 20 special.